Post by Ayla on Jan 28, 2016 6:09:09 GMT 8
Last June, Alexa Rodriguez filed a discrimination complaint against MedStar Georgetown University Hospital with the D.C. Office of Human Rights. The hospital had allegedly denied her request for breast implant surgery on the grounds that she is a transgender woman.
Rodriguez, Vice President of D.C.’s Latino LGBT History Project, had been referred to MedStar Georgetown for the surgery by her primary care physician at Whitman-Walker Health, a D.C. nonprofit community health center that specializes in LGBT and HIV care. Whitman-Walker was providing Rodriguez with the full array of necessary treatments and services to go along with her gender transition, according to a report from Washington Blade, including hormone therapy and mental health counseling.
“Whitman-Walker routinely refers transgender and other patients to qualified specialists, including Georgetown, for health care needs that we do not offer in-house,” the center’s Director of Communications Shawn Jain said in an interview with the Blade. Rodriguez recalled that she had known of other transgender women who had transition-related breast surgery at MedStar Georgetown in 2014. According to Ruby Corado, Executive Director of Casa Ruby, a bilingual multicultural LGBT community center, one of these surgeries occurred as recently as January 2015.
It was then that Rodriguez visited Dr. Troy Pittman, a respected plastic surgeon at MedStar Georgetown who has specific expertise in reconstructive and cosmetic breast surgery, who conditionally cleared her for the procedure. Initially, Rodriguez’s insurer, UnitedHealthcare, denied her request for coverage of the surgery, but reversed its decision five months later in response to her appeal of the denial.
On May 8, Rodriguez called a hospital employee who schedules Dr. Pittman’s appointment to schedule her surgery, only to find out that the hospital was no longer taking transgender women for treatment or surgery. According to Rodriguez, one of her female transgender friends was denied breast-related surgery from Georgetown that same week.
Representatives of MedStar Georgetown could not be reached for comment for this story, but in a statement released to the Blade, Marianne Worley, Director of Media Relations for MedStar Georgetown, explained the decision by saying that the hospital has a policy of not discriminating against patients based on sexual orientation or gender identity and expression, among other categories. “A high-quality gender transition service is best delivered in the context of an integrated program rather in a one-off manner, and such a program does not exist at MedStar Georgetown,” she said. As it stands, because it chose to deny Rodriguez treatment due to her identity as a transgender woman, MedStar Georgetown could be in violation of the Human Rights Act of 1977. Should the hospital be found guilty, it could appeal the verdict, and the case could find its way to the federal courts.
georgetownvoice.com/2016/01/27/behind-times-understanding-health-care-transgender-students/
Rodriguez, Vice President of D.C.’s Latino LGBT History Project, had been referred to MedStar Georgetown for the surgery by her primary care physician at Whitman-Walker Health, a D.C. nonprofit community health center that specializes in LGBT and HIV care. Whitman-Walker was providing Rodriguez with the full array of necessary treatments and services to go along with her gender transition, according to a report from Washington Blade, including hormone therapy and mental health counseling.
“Whitman-Walker routinely refers transgender and other patients to qualified specialists, including Georgetown, for health care needs that we do not offer in-house,” the center’s Director of Communications Shawn Jain said in an interview with the Blade. Rodriguez recalled that she had known of other transgender women who had transition-related breast surgery at MedStar Georgetown in 2014. According to Ruby Corado, Executive Director of Casa Ruby, a bilingual multicultural LGBT community center, one of these surgeries occurred as recently as January 2015.
It was then that Rodriguez visited Dr. Troy Pittman, a respected plastic surgeon at MedStar Georgetown who has specific expertise in reconstructive and cosmetic breast surgery, who conditionally cleared her for the procedure. Initially, Rodriguez’s insurer, UnitedHealthcare, denied her request for coverage of the surgery, but reversed its decision five months later in response to her appeal of the denial.
On May 8, Rodriguez called a hospital employee who schedules Dr. Pittman’s appointment to schedule her surgery, only to find out that the hospital was no longer taking transgender women for treatment or surgery. According to Rodriguez, one of her female transgender friends was denied breast-related surgery from Georgetown that same week.
Representatives of MedStar Georgetown could not be reached for comment for this story, but in a statement released to the Blade, Marianne Worley, Director of Media Relations for MedStar Georgetown, explained the decision by saying that the hospital has a policy of not discriminating against patients based on sexual orientation or gender identity and expression, among other categories. “A high-quality gender transition service is best delivered in the context of an integrated program rather in a one-off manner, and such a program does not exist at MedStar Georgetown,” she said. As it stands, because it chose to deny Rodriguez treatment due to her identity as a transgender woman, MedStar Georgetown could be in violation of the Human Rights Act of 1977. Should the hospital be found guilty, it could appeal the verdict, and the case could find its way to the federal courts.
georgetownvoice.com/2016/01/27/behind-times-understanding-health-care-transgender-students/